Following the announcement[1] that Tony Eury Jr would no longer be the crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 88 Chevy, Dale Earnhardt Jr spoke about the decision and did not seem surprised with the split.

Earnhardt Jr said:

I told Rick that whatever he wanted to do, to do it, and that meant whatever. If he thought I wasn’t able to get the job done, then I would be fine if he wanted to change who was in the seat, if he wanted to change certain particulars on the team — whatever — to not necessarily involve me in it.

Jr finished 40th at last weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway due to an ill-handling car. He said that performance might have sped up Rick Hendrick’s decision.

Jr attempted to explain what he thought the problem might have been. He said:

Most of last year, we ran on right-front bump stops, and we were running good with that. We had studied and learned that. During the middle of the season, Jimmie [Johnson] was trying some different stuff, and he started having some success with it. We started trying it and trying to make it work and trying to learn it, so we could be ready to go to the Chase and not get our butts kicked, and we really kind of got lost trying to develop this other idea of how to set the car up. And we got away from what was working and never really regained that momentum.

Earnhardt Jr maintains that he believe in Tony Jr, and thinks that Eury Jr will be successful again. Jr also said his relationship with Eury Jr is still strong.